This cartoon registers the dissatisfaction that many Republicans, including
candidate Rutherford Hayes, felt about the Electoral Commission Act:
"Compromise-Indeed!" reads the caption. Democrats, on the other hand,
widely supported the law which created a multi-institutional committee to settle
the election dispute. Dominating this picture is the image of the cocked pistol
and bullwhip, their meaning reinforced by menacing quotes-"Tilden or
Blood"-printed on a profusion of papers. To Nast, at this point, the
commission was merely an institutionalized way to allow Democratic coercion to
prevail.